I have to vouch for you.'
'I'm straight. No need to talk to me like I'm some fish.'
'School's in session now, boy. If we gonna do this, you need to be able to handle your business. Never let the other guy get up on you. Never trust anyone. Never do your own product. Never do anything out of charity. Out here, in life, it's all about business.'
'Are there any always?' Prez leaned forward to appear intent, but didn't know where to put his arms. He almost tottered over.
'Always be strapped.' Red snapped open a baggy and filled it about half an inch deep. 'Typical customer, here's what you give them.'
'The baggy looks kinda pale.'
'The more on the hook they are, the smaller the baggies you give them.'
'That's cold, man.'
'That's business. It's all about that dollar, son.'
The dream memories churned in fits and spurts. First steps, twelfth steps, whatever step it was that put Prez on the path to this couch, trembling like an errant leaf in a fall breeze. Maybe the step came earlier, with his hollowed-out self. The hunger was pure, elemental, and he knew how to sate it. This he could control; fix the outside and the insides would take care of themselves. Stumbling through back alleys, searching for ground scores hoping that food, maybe a burger, might be found discarded but still edible. He missed the days when McDonald's had their Beanie Babies and whole meals went to waste in bags as patrons bought Happy Meals just for the toy prize.
His head seemed too big for his gaunt frame, giving the illusion that his thin neck was unable to support its weight. His cheekbones stood out above washedout and cracked lips. Splotches dotted his skin. How much time had passed? Hours? Days? Weak and still shivering in bed, sleep eluded him. He clawed at his skin as if wanting to scrape it off. Nothing eased the suffering. It seemed cruel, a punishment too harsh for his crime. He was guilty of only wanting to feel better, of wanting to feel complete. Happy. Wanting the hurt to stop. Ashamed and terrified, King was the only person he could trust.
'Let me out of here,' Prez said to the shadowed form he glimpsed through tear-blurred, half-open eyes.
'I can't do it, Prez. And you don't want me to.'
King daubed the perspiration sheen from the boy's forehead, a little too sternly, definitely lacking a mother's tender touch.
Breathing through his open mouth, Prez's thrashes grew weaker. The smell of him filled the room, his sweat soaked through his shirt and sheets, a mildewed stink. Prez told himself over and over that he was going to leave all this behind him, all the thugging and gangsta posing. Even before that last deal went so wrong.
'What the fuck?' Red put fire to the blunt, drew in its smoke, closed his eyes to let it do its work, and blew out a thick stream of smoke.
'What's up?' Prez turned from the television, a rerun of some cop show on TNT. Naptown Red hunched over a table, stacks of bills in front of him and a few scattered tester packets. More than a couple he had sampled himself.
'We short. Nearly a G.' The patches of his face seemed to swirl, a Rorschach in varying shades of brown. He ran his hand through his dry, straightened hair.
'What you mean?'
'You stupid, motherfucker? Fathead done shorted us. Trying to punk us out.' Fathead Wallace was one of their new distributors. Red was uncertain about putting him on, but Prez vouched for him, saying they went back years, both having squat in the same places off and on.
'Let's go talk to him. I bet we can straighten things out.'
'Talk? What did I tell you? 'Never let the other guy get up on you.' Anyone who tries, we got to fuck up or else we the ones who look weak.'
'But there might be a simple mistake.'
'You got a few hundred in your pockets you forgot to give me?' Red slipped his Taurus into his dip.
'No.'
'You got a few more ounces have gone unsold?'
'No.' Yes. Actually, they got smoked up behind that old burned-out church. Violating Red's other rule, 'never do your own product.' But, as much as Fathead was his boy and all, he wasn't about to admit to stealing from Red. Might as well cut off his own hands.
'You up for fucking someone up or are you one of them all-talk niggas?'
Prez never wanted to be thought of as weak. Not that he wanted to be one of those hollow-eyed brothers, like Green or Junie, folks so ate up by the streets they had nothing left inside. He didn't need to be hard like that or have his name ring out like that. He was no gangsta by any means, but he was no punk neither. Played out as weak, he might as well not show his face around as everyone would be seeking to get over on him. So all the way over to Fathead's place, Prez talked about how he was going to fuck up Fathead. Punched his own hand in a pantomime of a beat-down. Made the noises of someone taking a punch then pleading for them to stop. Talking all kinds of shit about 'naw nigga, you shouldn't have played us. You earned this. You better let everyone know not to cross us.'
Naptown Red listened patiently. He'd sparked up before they left, getting his head right before going off on a mission. Tooled up, his mind was definitely intent on getting either his money, his product, or someone's ass.
'This the right place?' They stood in front of a white shotgun house, which stood out on the block from the other more Arts and Crafts era-inspired houses.
'Yeah.'
Red tamped out a cigarette, lit it, and took a long pull. Leaving the cigarette dangling from his lip, he stepped back and kicked the door in.
Two brothers reclined on a couch, jumping to attention at Red and Prez's entrance. A skinny white kid missing one eye, struggled to find his sea legs. He knocked over an opened pizza box with only a quarter of a pie left. A half-dozen empty soldiers of Blatz toppled along the table, which Prez remembered Fathead once calling 'the Muskatel of beer.'
'Which one of you motherfuckers is Fathead?' Red asked, as if more than one of them was missing an eye. No one spoke up. Red glanced back at Prez, then traced his eye line to the skinny boy. Prez sheepishly turned away. Fathead curled up his slip at the sting of betrayal. 'You got the rest of my money, bitch?'
'What money? We straight,' Fathead said. Fine scars framed his fake eye. He'd seen a movie where some dude kept having different glass eyes, like one was a yellow smiley face. Fathead wanted to draw a skull and crossbones on his. That would be some tripped out shit.
'Naw, motherfucker, we far from straight. We about a grand from straight.'
'You better take that up with your boy,' Fathead said, hands raised and in plain sight. 'Came over here, I told him the package looked a little light. His eyes all fucked up, I knew he'd been hitting it. I ain't tryin' to rip nobody off. I'm just out to earn. And I can't earn if I burn my connect straight out the gate.'
Red calculated the P/F, profits to fiending, ratio. Fathead might have been up on pizza and cheap beer, maybe a blunt or two, but that was it. Prez itched his forearm, eyes swimming in his head. In a whirl, Red grabbed the neck of one of the bottles and smashed it against Prez's skull.
'Ho shit!' Fathead skittered up the back of his couch, not taking his eyes from the scene.
Prez clutched his head and called out to the Lord, apparently now on a first-name basis with him. Naptown Red snapped his knife to life, poised to carve out his missing money from Prez's narrow behind when the sound of a high grinding metal whine pierced the room.
A seam of light split the air. Red and Fathead pushed past him, tumbling out the door. The poor fool, Prez, turned back and received a claw across his face for his troubles. Blood. So much blood. A small creature pulled its lips back to reveal teeth like a shark's. It removed its cap to daub the stain of blood left by Prez. That was the last image he remembered — the row of sharpened teeth — before King found him.
Prez knew all about the twelve-step programs. He tried them as a condition of getting food from churches. He hated the fact that churches always made him listen to their spiel before doing anything for him. They couldn't just give him a free meal, couldn't just take one look at him and see that he was in need. He always got stuck on that third step of the program. They always talked about a higher power, but prayer struck him as rather desperate.
